


I Need Help Believing

by excessiveshipping



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Lucid Dreaming, Multi, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 11:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6115153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excessiveshipping/pseuds/excessiveshipping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will and Jem have been inseparable since the day they met but will they face loosing that when they are promised a true soulmate when the turn 18?</p><p>Tessa was never obsessed with the idea of soulmates but she becomes more interested when there are signs her situation may not be the traditional love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Need Help Believing

**Author's Note:**

> This is based in the soulmate verse created by gravityinglass so read their 5sos ot4 fic Hold On Tight (sleep, dream, you, repeat) for more of the concept and a fucking amazing fic. 
> 
> For background Will is about a month younger than Jem and Tessa is a year younger than the both of them in this. 
> 
> The first chapter is Will and Jem, the second will be Tessa and I might do a third of pure fluff.

Will couldn’t take this anymore. They couldn’t keep ignoring the fact that this was the last night before Jem got his dreams. Will had loved Jem in some capacity since that day they met on their street, only eight years old. Jem listened to Will talk about his books and laughed at his jokes. How could Will possibly not fall in love with the specks of silver that glinted in his eyes and the beauty of his music and the way he laughed.

He was sitting right next to Jem, watching some movie that he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to. They were having a sleepover, as they normally did at least once a week since the beginning of their friendship. Will couldn’t remember a time that their friendship felt as tense as it was at that current moment.

“Will did you hear me?” Jem said softly.

“What?” Will startled, lost in thought. “No, I.. uh.” Jem got up and turned off the tv since neither of them were paying any attention to it. He sat back on the bed next to Will but with a clear distance between them.

“We need to talk” said Jem, looking down at his feet, avoiding eye contact.

“About what?” Will asked with a false sense of cheer.

“Don’t bullshit me Will.” He tried to ignore the way Will flinched at his harshness. “We can’t keep dancing around what neither of us wants to talk about. I’m… tommorrow is the last day before my birthday.”

“So what,” Will snapped. He was trying to keep together but his eyes burned with tears and his nails were digging roughly into his palms. He knew this conversation was what he needed but he couldn’t bear to face it.

Jem finally looked up at him and clearly saw how close to breaking Will was. “Don’t pretend you don’t care, it won’t help. We both know… we can’t ignore….” Tears started to roll down his cheeks. “Goddammit”

In a second the tension between them had evaporated and Will immediately shifted over to comfort him. He hugged Jem and wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve, resting his palm on Jem’s cheek and looking into his eyes.

“We’ll talk. I… I just don’t know a way to say it.”

“Just tell me the truth and if it’s necessary I’ll… I’ll forget it after tonight.” Tears were still falling down his face, collecting against Will’s hand which hadn’t moved.

“Okay. I… ugh fuck the English language. There are thousands, millions of stories or poems in which is said what I want, no need to say to you yet they all are insubstantial in conveying what I feel. Books have given me everything in life, but they cannot show me a way to say I love you that does not give us a tragic ending.”

Jem stared at Will, trying to digest his monologue. They sat there staring into each other’s eyes, their faces barely two inches apart, and in complete silence. The outside noises of cars or wind or birds were dampened until all that was heard in the boys’ ears was the roaring intensity of their silence.

After a time neither could ever quantify, a single tear dropped from Will’s shattered eyes. In that exact moment Jem surged forward and connected their lips softly with such strong emotion. Will responded immediately to the kiss returning it with the same emotion. At this point both of them were truly crying, clinging to the other. They broke apart from the kiss but stayed just as close.

“I love you too Will” Jem whispered, not wanting to challenge the strength of the still existent silence. “I always have, I always will”

“How can you say that? How can you know that,” said Will, crying harder. “Y-you can’t p-possibly know, a-and y-your soulmate! You h-have a soulmate, y-your g-getting them t-tommorrow. You c-can’t be kissing m-me. It d-doesn’t matter i-if you l-love me you’ll l-love them more.” Will broke down completely and sobbed into Jem’s shoulder, his entire body shaking.

Jem shifted them so they were both lying down on his bed, pulling a blanket over the two of them. He cradled Will as he continued to sob against him. Jem rubbed his back comfortingly as his own tears dripped off his chin into Will’s hair.

When Will stopped shaking and Jem assumed he was asleep he whispered into the silence, “I don’t want a soulmate, I already have you.”

***************************

When Will woke up the next morning in Jem’s arms he couldn’t help but stay for just a little bit longer until Jem woke up. Eventually the two left each other’s comfort as Will returned home with next to no words exchanged between the pair.

Will spent the day in his room trying to, to no avail, distract himself from thoughts of Jem. He started and stopped reading at least ten different books, got distracted from two movies, and when Cecily tried to talk to him about some boy Gabe, he heard about two words she said. All Will could do is replay the night before with Jem; the kiss, the crying, the way Jem comforted him. Will still mostly managed to avoid thinking too much about that word. The word that changed everything and left only hurt with a person who was once the safest place in his life.

That night Will got no sleep. His brain was buzzing with thoughts of Jem and whereas during the day he had avoided some darker thoughts, the silence of the night engulfed him. Is it possible for him and Jem to stay friends? Are they going to drift apart? Is Jem going to regret everything about last night when he meets his soulmate? Will didn’t know what he would do if he lost Jem.

His thoughts tortured him until his head felt like it was splitting apart. Also this feeling in his gut started around midnight, this sort of pulling longing deep within him. He felt like he was falling apart and his only way to cope was to break down into tears again. But now there wasn’t strong hands and a soft face to comfort him.

Will couldn’t bear to get up for school the next morning, not wanting to face Jem or deal with his lack of sleep.

****************

Over the next month Jem and Will barely interacted. They sat together at lunch and in several classes but never really spoke. They didn’t see each other outside of school or make any sort of contact. Will had never felt more alone in his life. Jem had always been there, the biggest fights they ever had were mainly over Will being rude to people. They had never had any conflict that was about the two of them alone.

Will’s family tried to understand what happened but his anger was completely untempered in his loss of Jem. Cecily was the only one who could manage to be in the same room as him and if she ever tried to bring up Jem he would throw her out in an instant.

The day before his birthday Will refused to go to school. He stayed at home with music at a volume as to try and drown out every thought in his head but all that happened was that the music reminded him of Jem. Everything reminded him of Jem. It had been an entire month and no emotion had lessened, he wasn’t farther away from that constant edge of breaking into tears, he hadn’t found a way to control his anger that wasn’t a calm reassuring hand on his shoulder and contact with those eyes that glinted with silver.

Now he was supposed to get someone. Someone who would fill this bottomless pit that tore through his chest. He could get a thousand people who would love and care for him but none would fill that pit. So he went to bed early in order to laugh in that person’s face who thought they were his true love. He didn’t deserve “true love” and no one deserved to be stuck with him.

Will slept dreamlessly until midnight. At that moment he seemed to wake up in a strange place. He was in a hallway with walls of a dark oak, ornately carved arches lined them and large candelabras lit the space. The floors were a beautiful dark marble and when Will looked in front of him there was a set of double doors leading to another room. Behind him the corridor seemed to stretch on without a visible endpoint, but with many other halls branching off of it.

He walked forward to open the doors and entered a grand room with high-reaching ceilings, and great stained glass windows. In the center stood a grand piano, a violin on a stand and sheet music spread across half the floor. Before he could stop it, a single tear ran down his cheek at the sight of the violin. Even in this beautiful dream world his thoughts led back to Jem.

“Didn’t know you were that much of a sap, crying over a pretty room,” said a familiar voice, chuckling.

Will spun around and saw Jem standing there smirking. “Is it possible to punch the universe in the face? Because I think that might appease me right now,” Will said voice strained, a torment of emotions attacking him. He didn’t know whether to scream at Jem for not telling him he hadn’t had a soulmate, kiss that fucking smirk off his face, or maybe just collapse to the floor and cry for a bit.

Jem just stood there for a second before starting to giggle. Will started to too and soon they were both cracking up, Will having tears streaking down his face but for once in laughter and not sadness. Eventually Jem snapped out of it and ran over to Will crashing a rough kiss against his lips. It didn’t work the best since Will was still laughing and crying but the two stand there with no space between them, holding each others’ faces and occasionally connecting their lips between smiles.They felt utterly complete in that moment, their faith in fate restored

**Author's Note:**

> I'm quite proud of this. It's my first fic I've posted on here so I hope people like it. 
> 
> My tumblr is queer-and-trashy.tumblr.com if you're interested in that.


End file.
